I am running SoLS. Last week one of the characters failed her save against a Wormcallers suggestion. Down she went, flying into the 500 foot deep pit, getting hit with the occasional spell from a wrom naga. I had changed that the opening of the pit empties into area 11, just at the edge of the worm sea. (I thought it odd that the presence of the worms was an after effect of Kyuss's ascension and yet it was one room over from the opening of this pit.)

We roleplay her flying into the chamber, being greeted by two wormcallers over the sea of worms and then the attack by the overworm. Let's say that with awesome blow and a grapple of 40+ there wasn't much chance she was getting away. Into the worm sea the character went, failed a couple more saves and is now deceased. I am going to have her consumed by the overworm, who in the description has the ability to turn any medium sized creature into a Sword of Kyuss.

I am not familiar with a template for this transformation. And I really want to unleash this and another character on the party as Swords. Does the newly created Sword keep the character levels? Is there a template for this?

I don't think there is a template for the Kyuss knight. It is just a 'monster'. What I'd do, is take the Kyuss knight stats and use them as a base, adjusting them to the character's armor, weapons, magical items, maybe throw in some of the character's specific powers.

I don't think there is a template for the Kyuss knight. It is just a 'monster'. What I'd do, is take the Kyuss knight stats and use them as a base, adjusting them to the character's armor, weapons, magical items, maybe throw in some of the character's specific powers.

Thanks Mr Vergee. My hopes were to create a combination Sword of Kyuss with ranger levels, wielding two magical swords. I guess that's not going to happen. It'll have to be the Sword with the characters magic items, armor and a newly formed blade. I am assuming the blade is magical and part of the Sword of Kyuss's incarnation. Still good, but not as creepy as the full blown effect.

I agree with the above poster. Take the PC and add Favored Spawn abilities to it, but leave the majority of the PCs abilities intact. Thn unleash it on the party using every dirty trick and PC power move that the PC ever used on your monsters. Your players will be terrified, especially play up the description and horrific appearance.

The great thing about the favoured spawn template is that the only thing the creature loses is its constitution and alignment (which turns to CE). It retains all class features such as spellcasting or bardic music (Kyuss bards are a riot...). I wonder if you can add the favoured spawn template and the death knight template to the same creature.

Here goes my first crack at a Kyuss Knight template. Any comments would be appreciated:

Kyuss Knight Template

“Kyuss Knight” is an acquired template that can be added to any humanoid creature with a base attack bonus of +4 or more (referred to hereafter as the base creature). A Kyuss knight has all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Attacks: A Kyuss knight retains all the attacks of the base creature and also gains 2 bite attacks. If the base creature can use weapons, the Kyuss knight retains this ability. A creature with natural weapons retains those natural weapons. A Kyuss knight fighting without weapons can use its bite attacks as its primary natural weapon. A Kyuss knight armed with a weapon or other primary natural weapon uses its bite attacks as secondary natural weapons. Each bite attack deals 1d4 damage.

Special Attacks: A Kyuss knight retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains those described below. Saves have a DC of 10 + ½ Kyuss knight’s HD + Kyuss knight’s Cha modifier unless noted otherwise.

Intelligence Drain (Su): Anyone who is bitten by one of the knight’s “eyes” takes 1d4 points of Intelligence drain. The Kyuss knight heals 5 points of damage each time it drains Intelligence from a creature.

Gifts of Kyuss (Su): Each Kyuss knight possesses two unique gifts granted to them by their divine patron. The following are example Gifts of Kyuss that are possessed by the five known Kyuss knights:
Nezzarin’s Gifts: Nezzarin has true seeing (a constant effect that cannot be dispelled). In addition, Nezzarin’s vision is supernaturally acute, granting him a +20 insight bonus on Search and Spot checks and on all Initiative rolls.
Barnos Indarna’s Gifts: Barnos Indarna is shrouded with an ephemeral shadow of his former self. Once per round, this shadow can use one of Barnos’ spell-like abilities or invoke visions of the worm as a free action—Barnos himself need not expend any actions to utilise this ability, but they are still treated as if he cast them normally for the purposes of resolving attacks of opportunity. The visions of the worm ability calls forth a shred of Kyuss’ powerful visions of the Age of Worms and implants this brief picture of horror in the mind of a nearby living creature. This ability has a range of 60 feet. The target creature must make a Will save or be stunned for one round, overcome with cataclysmic visions from the as yet unborn Age of Worms.
Kardic’s Gifts: Three times a day as a free action (but only once per round), Kardic can transform a weapon he wields into shadow, allowing him to resolve one attack as a touch attack. Also three times a day, he can slip into shadow form himself as a free action to avoid a blow that would have hit him, granting him a 50% miss chance against that particular attack. Kardic must choose to use this ability before damage is determined.
Markath’s Gifts: Any time Markath successfully scores a critical hit against an opponent with a melee attack, a targeted greater dispel magic affects that target (caster level equal to Markath’s HD). Additionally, Markath’s bite attacks drain 2d4 points of Intelligence on a hit rather than 1d4.
Maralee’s Gifts: Maralee possesses a terrible gaze weapon. All living creatures within 30 feet of Maralee must make a Fortitude save or become permanently blinded as their eyes transform into Kyuss worms. On the next round these worms burrow into the victim’s brain, inflicting 2d6 points of Intelligence drain per round. A remove curse or remove disease effect destroys the worms. Death occurs at 0 Intelligence. A Small, Medium, or Large humanoid slain by these worms rises as a favoured spawn of Kyuss (see DRAGON #336) 1d6+4 rounds later. Maralee also acts at all times as if hasted.

Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): A Kyuss knight can use the following spell-like abilities as a cleric whose caster level equals the Kyuss knight’s HD: At will - detect good; 1/day — bull’s strength, death knell, protection from energy.

Special Qualities: A Kyuss knight retains all the special qualities of the base creature and gains those described below:

Damage Reduction (Su): A Kyuss knight has damage reduction 10/silver.

Dark Blessing (Su): A Kyuss knight applies his Charisma modifier as a bonus on all saving throws.

Immunities (Ex): A Kyuss knight is immune to cold and electricity damage.

Unholy Toughness (Ex): A Kyuss knight gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier x its Hit Dice.

Worm Healing (Su): The Kyuss knight is healed by the horrid power caught in the writhing worms of Kyuss. As a full-round action that provokes an attack of opportunity, a Kyuss knight can consume an adjacent wormswarm. This heals the Kyuss knight of all damage and removes any condition removed by the heal spell. The wormswarm is completely destroyed, but makes no move to defend itself from this consumption.

Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +16, Wis +6, Cha +12. As an undead creature, a Kyuss knight has no Constitution score.

Here goes my first crack at a Kyuss Knight template. Any comments would be appreciated:

This looks great. It would certainly be a challenge beyond my characters at this level, essentially making a CR 19 creature from a 12th level character. Weilding two swords ranger style, one of them being a sword of speed, would be devestating.

Hagen, I would like to extend my appriciation for the work you have done with this template. I always hated the Idea of Loris Raknian becoming a death knight if the party failed to stop the Apostle from turning Auric into a Spawn of Kyuss. I was looking for an alternative and you have given me just that.

Last night my party fought the Apostle and almost defeated him. Unfortunately for them, it still had 27 hit points left when it turned Auric and the prophecy came true. Now Loris is a Kyuss Knight. I am sure they will be meeting up with him in the future. Meanwhile the fate of the City of Greyhawk is undecided. Maybe Loris will come back and rule it as the City of the Dead. He is after all a 19 CR critter quite capable of defeating the guardians of the city with the allies he already has and those he is destined to gain. Those same gaurdians that will be pretty much spent try to stop 1000s upon 1000s of wights from killing everyone in the city. Should be fun.

You're very welcome, always happy to help out fellow DM's. I too thought that the death knight template (from the DragonLance Campaign Setting) wasn't the best choice for Loris. The first thing I noticed about Kyuss Knights when designing the template was their HUGE number of hit points when factoring in their high Hit Dice, high Charisma, and unholy toughness. Personally, I love Unholy Toughness and would like to see it on more undead creatures. Heck, I'd probably give every undead creature Unholy Toughness.

Now I'm thinking of redesigning the four Kyuss Knights found in the Spire of Long Shadows. Have Tenser (Manzorian) tell the PC's that when Kyuss was in Sulm he had four guardians known as Nezzarin the Watcher (human ranger 8), Barnos Indarna the Seer (human cleric 2/fighter 6), Kardic the Shadow (human fighter 4/rogue 3/assassin 1), and Markath the Mage-Slayer (human fighter 8). Give them different feats and weapons, add Kyuss Knight template, and suddenly you have a rather impressive group of villains. When Dawn of a New Age comes along, have a villain use a wish spell to bring the four back, give them a few more levels to raise their CR's, and add Maralee or Loris (or both) to the mix.

After some consideration, I decided to lower the bonuses granted to ability scores by the Kyuss Knight template. I'm now assuming that Kyuss' four knights had the following scores before turning: Str 14, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 11, Cha 10 and that Maralee's pre-Kyuss abilities were: Str 22, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 14. The new bonuses make the template slightly less powerful, but still provides hefty bonuses to Strength and Charisma. Another modification was a bonus language.

I agree with toning down the ability mods.
I don't know why people assume that NPCs would be built using a bunch of 10s and 11s, the standard array, or even the elite array.
They should match whatever system your PCs used, especially when discussing people who had what it takes to become high-level characters.

I assume the above would reduce the Smenk-Knight by 2 points per ability, as well?

Here are my modified stat blocks for the four Kyuss knights in the Spire of Long Shadows. Keep in mind that I calculate hp's differently, giving my monsters the same advantages that my players get: Max hp at level 1 and minimum half max HD per level (So undead creatures get 12 hp for their 1st HD, and 6-12 for every other HD).

Awesome stuff Hagen. Thanks for your efforts. My group is about a third done Gathering of Winds. I will ahve to put though into whether the next adventure needs to be boosted. If so, I plan on making use of your efforts.

After some consideration, I decided to lower the bonuses granted to ability scores by the Kyuss Knight template. I'm now assuming that Kyuss' four knights had the following scores before turning: Str 14, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 11, Cha 10 and that Maralee's pre-Kyuss abilities were: Str 22, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 14. The new bonuses make the template slightly less powerful, but still provides hefty bonuses to Strength and Charisma. Another modification was a bonus language.

I'm revisiting this page, since I'm at this stage in my campaign, and the work done so far is very inspiring.

I'm converting to PF rules, and want to comment on the stat mods.
The scenario mentions the four knights in the ziggurat were all 'blackguards', which in current terms would mean 'antipaladins'.
I plan to mix that up, with a variety of classes, as above, but am working on the assumption that the example Knight, Nezzarin, was such a class.

Some of the abilities (such as Dark Blessing) are very similar to those granted by the blackguard prestige class, so I'm not sure if so much of the printed statblock is intended to be template, and how much from the base creature.

I'm thinking the original blackguard, Nezzarin, would have had a much higher Cha than Con, hence would have needed much less of a boost to bring it to the printed value?
Since Con is disappearing, it isn't as important to assume the base creature had it cranked up, so we could maybe assume he had a 14? Or similar value which would have allowed his Cha to be starting from a higher level 1 score?

I'm wary of boosting a potential casting stat by that much, as the effects on a Kyuss Knight Bard, Antipaladin, Sorcerer or Oracle built (using 4d6 or point-buy) would be quite overwhelming.